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Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly

08 Jun 99 - 01:35 AM (#84839)
Subject: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rita64

Has anyone else noticed the vast sum of folk songs about this trio of lasses? There must be an explanation for this - my suggestions include:

1. Parents of the UK and Ireland upheld the tradition for centuries of calling their female offspring Nancy, Peggy or Molly (boring);

2. In the days of yore, these names were thought of as fancy, romantic and exciting - these names inspired feelings within the breasts of all who heard them sung;

3. Nancy, Peggy and Molly were engaged in an obsessive competition to sleep with as many musicians possible to ensure their immortality through music.

Anyone care to make suggestions? Also, why are all folksong heroes/false young men called Johnny or Willie? I seriously am very curious.

08 Jun 99 - 01:49 AM (#84842)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rick Fielding

Gosh Fairmaid, that's a tough one without getting into complex psychological implications. Somehow "Dark-eyed Kirstie," or "Pretty Caitlin-o" or even "Loving Katlaughing" just doesn't make it, ballad-wise.
The second part is much easier. Male heros of folksongs all want to be named after their penises. And don't forget there's a few "Dicks" in the mix as well. Perhaps we can change it though.

"There were three jolly sailors,
Josh, Jason and Sean,
Who met a trio of maidens,
Chris, Sydney, and Muffy,
Oh to hell with it!

rick (don't call me dick)

08 Jun 99 - 02:12 AM (#84844)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rita64

Tee hee hee. Rick, I've learnt it is best to leave comments about penises to the experts. Folksong hero = penis. Thanks for bringing that incredible coincidence to our attention.

08 Jun 99 - 06:17 AM (#84868)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Martin _Ryan

God forgive my simple mind - but I suspect it's just that names ending in vowels are easier to bend rhymes around!

Regards

08 Jun 99 - 12:26 PM (#84955)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Peter

But don't most "traditional" girls' names in English end with a vowel sound? (In fact in most European languages?) I would add Annie to your list, certainly north of the Border. Of which Nancy is, of course, a variant.

On sailors and penises:

There is a traditional Newfoundland song that includes the girl's lament, "My Willie's so long at sea".

Must be the salt air.

08 Jun 99 - 10:37 PM (#85070)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Matthew B.

Actually, in the world of sea shanties, there are two kinds of women: Nancy and Sally.

Nancy is that one true love you left behind, wearing your ring and true to your memory, etc etc.

Sally is the girl you met while on shore leave, who probably got you drunk and robbed you blind.

But back to your examples. Peggy (or Meg) is usually a girl of the street, exiled for transportation:

Oh dark and dreary was the day When last I saw my Meg She'd a government band around each hand And another one on each leg

As for Molly, she shows up in various forms, but can always drink you under the table.

I hope this helps, but even if it doesn't, I have fun writing it. heh heh

08 Jun 99 - 11:13 PM (#85088)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: harpgirl

oh this one's easy...two syllable names sing more melodically...

09 Jun 99 - 02:45 AM (#85123)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rita64

You know Matthew, an inebriated and over-friendly Irish guy in a seedy bar once asked me my name and I told him he should guess what it is. He said I look like a "Sally". He he he.

"Sally is the girl you met while on shore leave, who probably got you drunk and robbed you blind."

09 Jun 99 - 06:14 PM (#85290)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Matthew B.

Was he right?

09 Jun 99 - 06:29 PM (#85297)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rick Fielding

You don't have to answer that Fairmaid! Belay those pins me harties!
Rick (who uses Old Spice, but is pretty landlocked)

10 Jun 99 - 12:22 AM (#85413)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: catspaw49

It seems there are quite a few "Bonnies" too, like:

Bonnie Bluflag--a Betsy Ross type who sewed the first state flag of Texas.
Bonnie Banks--First woman to become CEO of a major financial institution.
Bonnie Brays--Had a popular stand-up act doing barnyard imitations.
Bonnie Braise--Did a TV cooking show.
Bonnie Lysover-- A really BIG girl, prone to taking baths in really large bodies of water; once left a ring around the entire North Atlantic.
Bonnie Streetz--Hooker who plied her trade at a military base in Fyvio.
Bonnie Toomey--Sister of Regis Toomey, whoever he was.

Yes, there's quite a list of Bonnies...this is just a few!

catspaw

10 Jun 99 - 02:14 AM (#85442)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rick Fielding

Don't forget "Bonnie Was a Warrior". Oops, wrong thread!

10 Jun 99 - 01:03 PM (#85557)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Steve I

Didn't Bonnie Banks live near Loch Lomond. Or am I thinking about something else :-)

10 Jun 99 - 01:10 PM (#85558)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Matthew B.

Ahem.

Have we gotten off on a tangent here?

(Don't we always?)

10 Jun 99 - 01:15 PM (#85560)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Fadac

Bonnie floats in sea water! "My Bonnie lies over the Ocean my Bonnie lies over the sea."

Wasn't Mable the one with the wooden leg, "used to play it like a fiddle"?

Jack of course is the robbed sailor, "Jack Sprat the sailor lad, must go to sea once more" (looking for Bonnie?)

However, John, is welcome. "Get up Jack, John, Sit down."

Fadac

10 Jun 99 - 04:51 PM (#85624)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Bert

What about MAGGIE!!!

10 Jun 99 - 11:07 PM (#85743)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Bill D

no Maggie...they have taken her away...(Maggie May)

(actually, a search of the database yields MANY Maggies...)

10 Jun 99 - 11:26 PM (#85749)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rita64

Hmmm ... I wonder what aftershave Matthew B. uses?

11 Jun 99 - 12:39 AM (#85771)
Subject: Lyr Add: LOVELY WILLIE
From: Rita64

Check out this song about "lovely" Willie (it's in the database)! My maturity is dissipating with every moment I spend on this thread.

LOVELY WILLIE

Oh, it happened one evening at the playing of ball
That I first met lovely Willie, so proper and tall.
He was neat, fair, and handsome, and straight in every limb;
There's a heart in this bosom lies breaking for him.

"And will you go with me a short piece of the road
For to view my father's dwelling and place of abode?"
Well, he knew by her look and her languishing eye
That he was the young man she valued most high.

"There's a house in my father's garden, lovely Willie," said she,
"Where lords, dukes, and earls they all wait upon me.
And when they are sleeping in their long silent rest
It's then I'll go with you; you're the boy I love best."

But her father'd been listening; in an ambush he lay
For to hear the fond words those true lovers did say.
And with a sharp rapier he pierced her love through
And the innocent blood of her Willie he drew.

The grave had been dug and lovely Willie laid in;
The mass it was chanted to cleanse his soul from sin.
And it's, "Oh, honoured father, you may speak as you will
But the innocent blood of my love you did spill.

"So I will go off to some foreign country
Where I shall know no one, and no knows me.
And it's there I will wander till I close my eyes in death
All for you, lovely Willie; you're the boy I love the best."

11 Jun 99 - 12:45 AM (#85774)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: catspaw49

How disappointing..........I thought you were about to give song lyrics about some guy's lovely Willie. Really would have been a lot more entertaining!

catspaw

11 Jun 99 - 01:06 AM (#85781)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rita64

Well catspaw (meow!) when I found that song title I was hoping for the same thing - a profound song of worship. I was going to write "at least the man dies in this song" but then I realised I might become the recipient of hate mail, so I won't.

Hee hee.

11 Jun 99 - 04:50 AM (#85818)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Wolfgang

Flora, Kora, Nora
and don't forget those names as, e.g., 'Wolfgang' which appears in the, well, not so traditional Christy Moore song 'Continental Ceilidh'.

11 Jun 99 - 04:59 AM (#85820)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Wolfgang

"Wolfgang's playing on the comb, someone shouts at him go home. Klaus is playin' a slow air on the bodhrán."
these two lines give you the idea, for more got to the Christy Moore Website.

Wolfgang

11 Jun 99 - 06:02 AM (#85827)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Ferrara

Well, you'd hardly expect to find a bar girl or a sailor's ladyfriend named Melpomene, Hermione or Amelia, would you now? Nor yet a sailor named Igor, Egon or Percival. People who couldn't read had a smaller choice of names, unless they took something familiar from the Bible. And I don't think most sailors and their hangers-on were church-going folks.

11 Jun 99 - 09:19 AM (#85853)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rick Fielding

I'm writing a brand new traditional sailor song that will be at least 200 years old. Please, I need rhymes for my characters; Chingatchkook, Esmeralda, Montmorency and Neil.

11 Jun 99 - 09:33 AM (#85858)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Wolfgang

Rick,
to get you an idea, look how Tom Lehrer rhymed on the first and family names of Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, Franz Werfel and Alma Mahler-Gropius-Werfel, not to mention the rhymes on their main works, in his song ALMA.

Wolfgang

11 Jun 99 - 09:46 AM (#85862)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Matthew B.

I do apologize for leaving out Maggie, especially since she IS one of my main performance subjects.

However, I was referring to the types of women found in most sea shanties, and I stand by my list in that vein.

By the way, Fair Youngmaid, if they ever update the Mudcatters' photo album, you'll be able to see my picture and figure out exactly which aftershave I use.

11 Jun 99 - 09:48 AM (#85863)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Matthew B.


:o)

11 Jun 99 - 10:26 AM (#85868)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: John in Brisbane

I can't think of a single folk song where the many hundreds of Maty's are anything but pure and chaste, but I would love to be proven wrong. Regards John.

11 Jun 99 - 11:11 AM (#85880)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Fadac

John in Brisbane,

Argh matey! I know a few tunes, where there is no question of the fine lady's...uh, charms.

For example, "Friggin in the rigging", "The good ship Venus", and don't forget the old stand by, "Mine is bigger than yours."

In tradional folk music, I guess, the ladies are all fair and fine. However when they come down to the sea shore, they relize that they are sitting on a gold mine.

Then I have heard songs about love with, caben boys, goats, sheep, other salors, drunks, skippers, and about anything with some sort of orifice.

Just look up the naughty F word in the data base. You will find lots of, uh, good time thingies.

-Fadac

11 Jun 99 - 09:11 PM (#86058)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Rita64

Matthew B. -

As long as the aforementioned aroma has no connection with shit pie I should be highly curious as to what it might be.

Photo album?

11 Jun 99 - 09:28 PM (#86063)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: bseed(charleskratz)

Did you all fail to notice that "Willie's so long at the sea" was Peter's post? --seed

11 Jun 99 - 09:47 PM (#86068)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: alison

Hi Fair young Maid,

Yes we have a photo album..... you'll find it at the link below... Bill D put it together..... it's an ongoing project of his **grin**

Mudcat photos

slainte

alison

12 Jun 99 - 12:31 PM (#86171)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Irish Rebel (inactive)

Aye!! Nancy is a Classic Sweet Girl Folk name.....i.e. The Fureys " Leavin'of Nancy O'" So Come a Little Closer, Lay your Head upon my Shoulder. And let me Hold ya one more time,before the whistle blows. and Andy Stewart's version of "Ramblin' Irishman": The very first Night I spent on board, I Dreamt about my Nancy. I Dreamed I held Her in my Arms, And it's well she Pleased my Fancy....... Now as for Molly and Sally, don't they both tie their Hair up with a "Black Velvet Band" *Wink* Slainte, Dave

12 Jun 99 - 03:13 PM (#86195)
Subject: RE: Goodtime Girls - Nancy, Peggy and Molly
From: Matthew B.

Good point, FYM. Well, the photo I sent doesn't have a shit-eatin' grin, so you'll have to wait and see, I guess